AuthorTopic: Song Of The Week - It Wont Be Long (Read 8129 times)

nimrod

It won't be long yeah, yeah, yeah It won't be long yeah, yeah, yeah It won't be long yeah, till I belong to you

Every night when everybody has fun Here am I sitting all on my own

It won't be long yeah, yeah, yeah It won't be long yeah, yeah, yeah It won't be long yeah, till I belong to you

Since you left me, I'm so alone Now you're coming, you're coming on home I'll be good like I know I should You're coming home, you're coming home

Every night the tears come down from my eyes Every day I've done nothing but cry

It won't be long yeah, yeah, yeah It won't be long yeah, yeah, yeah It won't be long yeah, till I belong to you

Well since you left me, I'm so alone Now you're coming, you're coming on home I'll be good like I know I should You're coming home, you're coming home

So every day we'll be happy I know Now I know that you won't leave me no more

It won't be long yeah, yeah, yeah It won't be long yeah, yeah It won't be long yeah, till I belong to you, woo

Primarily a 'John' song with assistance from Paul. A fantastic opener to their 2nd album 'With The Beatles' !!

The chorus is a play on the words "be long" and "belong". The song features early Beatles' trademarks such as call-and-response yeah-yeahs and scaling guitar riffs. Typical also of this phase of Beatles' song writing is the melodramatic ending (similar to "She Loves You", which had just been recorded and was about to be released) where the music stops, allowing Lennon a brief solo vocal improvisation before the song finishes on a major seventh chord ("She Loves You" ends on a major sixth). There is an unusual middle eight—for what is, essentially, a rock and roll song—that uses chromatically descending chords.

John Lennon, in his last interview, told Playboy magazine that the song was the beginning of a wider audience for Beatles' music than the youthful throngs that had fervently followed them from their Liverpool clubbing days. "It was only after a critic for the [London] Times said we put 'Aeolian cadences' in 'It Won't Be Long' that the middle classes started listening to us. . . . To this day, I have no idea what 'Aeolian cadences' are. They sound like exotic birds." Actually the critic, William Mann, said this about the song "Not a Second Time." Bob Dylan had much the same thing in mind when he wrote that Beatles chords were "outrageous, just outrageous."

John Lennon, in his last interview, told Playboy magazine that the song was the beginning of a wider audience for Beatles' music than the youthful throngs that had fervently followed them from their Liverpool clubbing days. "It was only after a critic for the [London] Times said we put 'Aeolian cadences' in 'It Won't Be Long' that the middle classes started listening to us. . . . To this day, I have no idea what 'Aeolian cadences' are. They sound like exotic birds."

For us here in the United States, It Won't Be Long appeared on The Beatles' first Capitol LP release Meet The Beatles!...

It was the fourth song on Side 1. The LP led off with I Want To Hold Your Hand.

This is a nice rocker by John. I also noticed the descending chromatic notes in George's lead guitar riff. It was very impressive as were the background vocals. It quickly became a favorite on this LP which had only one cover song, Till There Was You.

Great opener, I've always loved it. I remember listening to it for the first time in the documental "The Compleat Beatles", and I liked it from that very moment. I already had several Beatles albums, but then I knew I had to buy With The Beatles too.

A great rocker. I didn't hear this til my teens as for some reason With the Beatles was the only LP my older brothers didnt have. I recall thinking at first it was written a bit to a formula. It seemed that the "yeah yeahs" were a bit of a signature they had to have at that stage. But as usual they throw so much good stuff in that it turns it into a great tune.